“Few can resist the allure of a beautiful rose, but some wasps outdo even the most ardent flower lover. Presented with the right specimen, a male orchid dupe wasp ejaculates right on the petals.”

“The orchids that caused the most extreme behaviour – pollination with ejaculation – have the highest pollination rate of any known sexually deceptive orchid. I think ejaculation is just a side effect of having an extremely compelling orchid.” ~

Anne Gaskett, Macquarie University, Sydney.

These wasps and orchids have a fascinating relationship – visit the article to discover more (including the interesting fact that the female wasps can produce offspring without mating… but only males). There’s a video there too, showing the male being fooled by the orchid.

Scan of placoderm eye casing
(Credit: Image courtesy of Australian National University)

Dr Gavin Young from the Department of Earth and Marine Sciences at ANU has analysed fossilised remains of 400-million-year-old Devonian placoderms – jawed ancestors of modern fish whose bodies were protected by thick bony armour.

The palaeobiologist discovered that unlike all living vertebrate animals – which includes everything from the jawless lamprey fish to humans – placoderms had a different arrangement of muscles and nerves supporting the eyeball – evidence of an ‘intermediate stage’ between the evolution of jawless and jawed vertebrates.

Nice to read of another addition to our understanding of eye evolution.

Structures involved in echolocation
(see article for details and credits)

Behind the sailor’s lore of fearsome battles between sperm whale and giant squid lies a deep question of evolution: How did these leviathans develop the underwater sonar needed to chase and catch squid in the inky depths?

“The earliest ancestors of old-world monkeys, apes and humans had surprisingly small brains, a new study shows.

This finding – based on a newly described fossil skull – means that large brains evolved independently in new- and old-world primates. It also suggests that evolutionary anthropologists may have to rethink some cherished theories about why such big, powerful brains evolved.”

“Nearly 100 years after his death, a monument has been unveiled to commemorate Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection – the process that drives the evolution of life on Earth. Although he is not a household name, Alfred Russel Wallace was one of the most famous scientists in the world when he died in 1913 aged 90…

The idea of natural selection as the mechanism of evolutionary change occurred suddenly to Wallace while he was suffering from a fever on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera in February 1858. Wallace wrote down his thoughts and sent them to fellow naturalist Charles Darwin whom he knew was interested in this topic… As the well-known story goes, Lyell and Hooker decided to present Wallace’s essay (without first asking his permission), along with some unpublished fragments from Darwin’s writings on the subject, to a meeting of the Linnaean Society on 1 July 1858. [Read the full text of the Darwin-Wallace Paper here]…

During Wallace’s lifetime the theory of natural selection was widely known as the ‘Darwin-Wallace theory’ but after his death his name slipped into relative obscurity for a variety of complex reasons. The Alfred Russel Wallace Memorial Fund is trying hard to make more people (scientists included!) aware, not only of Wallace’s role as the co-discoverer of natural selection, but also of his many other important and enduring contributions to biology and wide variety of other disciplines.”

“It’s been a little over a year and a half now since scientists announced the discovery of the most controversial fossil in the field of human origins: Homo floresiensis aka the Hobbit. Scientists found bones of a diminutive hominid on the Indonesian island of Flores, and estimated that it lived there as recently as 12,000 years ago. It stood about as high as a normal three year old human child and had a brain the size of a chimpanzee’s. But its bones were also found with stone tools. The scientists declared the bones were not human. Instead, they belonged to a species of their own — one that branched off from much older hominids. Later, the scientists offered brain scans and more bones to bolster their case.”

This collection of essays by Carl Zimmer chronicles the ‘hobbit wars’ between rival palaeoanthropologists — is Homo floresiensis a new species or a human pygmy, perhaps with birth defects?

Scientists have discovered that rarest of things: a chicken with teeth.

Contrary to the well-known phrase, ‘As rare as hens’ teeth,’ the researchers say they have found a naturally occurring mutant chicken called Talpid that has a complete set of ivories. The team has also managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.

The mutant was discovered 50 years ago and has such defects that it dies before hatching — until now it’s mouth hadn’t been examined. The discovery of teeth, similar to those of crocodiles, in the mutant led the researchers to wonder whether healthy chickens might still maintain the genetic pathways to re-grow teeth.

We found we were able to induce teeth to grow in normal chickens by making changes to the expression of particular molecules,” said Professor Ferguson. “All the pathways to make teeth are preserved which helps us understand how evolutionary changes can be brought about by subtle alterations in developmental biology.